


Family Road Trip

by Kestrel337



Series: Family of Choice [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Kidfic, M/M, Parentlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 01:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestrel337/pseuds/Kestrel337
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A family road trip is not for the faint of heart. Takes place about 3 years after <i> Archer's Voice</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Road Trip

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Hedgehogandotter was my beta on this, and it is so much better as a result of her notes. That being said, all remaining mistakes reflect on me, not on her. 
> 
> 2) Warning for potential earworms. 
> 
> 3) This and my other prompt had a party with some posts on Tumblr, spawning at least two more stories. None will be series three compliant, based on what I’ve heard here in my spoiler avoidant bubble. At the moment, this installment is as fluffy as it gets.
> 
> 4) I don’t own anyone except my original characters. No disrespect is intended or money is made. 
> 
> 5) Written for Sherlockmas 2013 Summer Prompting Fest.

John stashed Sherlock’s laptop case in the SUV and slammed the liftgate shut. “Right, that’s everything. Now remember, Greg and I will be able to text between cars. If you need a break, say so. We can stop, stretch our legs, give you some quiet time, whatever you need.”

“John. We’ve already gone over all of this.” Sherlock chided his husband of four months.

“No, I mean it. If it gets too much, I can drive. If you need to stop, we can stop. I’ve got ipads, and headphones, but it’d be best if we saved those...they should be able to entertain each other for at least half the trip.”

“John. Really. None of this is necessary. Didn’t I come to the birthday parties-”

“Yeah, I know, but a road trip...that’s different, yeah? I’m sure it will be fine, but sometimes it brings out the absolute worst in people.”

“Will it be worse than when Archer was potty training and Poppy was teething? Because that was fairly awful.” He fixed John with his most Mycroftian look. “It will be fine.”

“Yes, alright Mr. Smart. Just...right. I’m sure it will be fine.”

There was a burst of chatter as Greg herded the young Watsons and Lestrades out of the flat, looking inquiringly at John and Sherlock. John raised a ‘just a moment’ finger and waved the children into the cars. “In, in, get your seatbelts on.” 

Greg wandered over to see what the delay was. “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet?”

John handed Sherlock the keys, watched him check the kids’ seatbelts before getting into the SUV. “Not really, no. But he’s never been on a road trip before.”

“John, mate. He’s been helping you raise those kids since Poppy was two weeks old. He moved into the flat downstairs so you wouldn’t be grieving and alone with a newborn and a toddler. He bloody married you four months ago. You’re really questioning his staying power?”

“I know, I know. I’m being ridiculous. But...we’re still good on Plan B, right?”

“Plan B is still an option. Now let’s go, before I have to take the troops up to the loo again.” He gave John a mock-shove, jogged back to where Molly waited in the driver’s seat. John sighed, braced himself for the worst, and climbed in for the long drive.

Sherlock took point, leading the two vehicle convoy toward their home-from-home for the next two weeks: a rental property that the booking agent promised was fully equipped for two couples and four under-eights while still being charming and cozy. He cued up his ipod before they left, hit ‘play’ as they left the city. An odd assortment of plucked and bowed sounds began to issue from the speakers, sounding akin to the traffic they had just left behind, though it all came from ordinary string instruments in the hands of skilled and gifted players. 

John side-eyed the screen. “ _The FLUX Quartet_. A bit avant-garde, even for you, isn’t it?”

Archer groaned dramatically. “Do we have to listen to this?”

“This isn’t even music. It’s just...noise.” Poppy repeated Sherlock’s favorite complaint about her listening tastes. “I’d rather have Harry.”

Sherlock spoke quickly. “No. While this vehicle is in motion, there will be no drums, no maracas, no ‘shake Senora, work it all de time’. Is that perfectly clear?” 

Poppy nodded seriously, though mischief lurked in her eyes. “Okay, I believe you.”

John bit back a laugh, and Archer snorted. 

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “I am quite serious, Penelope. I will forgo the FLUX Quartet if you will agree not to inflict...that...on us.” He shuddered.

“Fair trade. No Harry Belafonte, and no FLUX quartet.” Poppy settled back, convinced she’d won. 

For the next several miles the children discussed happenings in the neighborhood, Archer and Sherlock debated Archer’s next violin performance piece, and John waited. He’d been on enough childhood road trips to know what restless spirits and an extended period spent in an enclosed space made inevitable. He assumed it would be his volatile daughter who set things off, but in the event it was Archer who launched the first volley. As the SUV entered a traffic circle, he began chanting: “Round and round the roundabout! It’s something we can shout about! ROUND AND ROUND THE ROUNDABOUT! IT’S SOMETHING WE CAN SHOUT ABOUT! **ROUND AND ROUND THE ROUNDABOUT!** ”- increasing the volume and tempo with each successive repetition. 

John turned and aimed a laser glare at his son even as Sherlock said. “Archer. That is an inappropriate volume for inside this vehicle.”

“It’s just a ga...I mean, an experiment.” The boy corrected himself earnestly. “See, you try to say it as many times as you can before you get all the way to your turning.”

“Yes, I gathered that. Are you also attempting to cause permanent hearing damage to the other occupants of the vehicle?”

“What? No. How would you even measure that? Jeez.”

“Then I expect you to conduct this experiment at a more moderate decibel level.” 

“And to apologize, for distracting the driver and putting all of us at risk,” John added his own requirement. 

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” 

If he rolled his eyes mockingly at his husband, Sherlock accepted Archer’s apology solemnly enough. John grinned at him before turning his attention to his phone.

_To: Greg  
We will have our revenge. Was that little game your doing? -JWH_

_From: Greg  
“Round the roundabout”? Roxie blames Mario at school._

_To: Greg  
Always knew he’d be a bad influence. -JWH_

“A game from school?” Sherlock pitched his voice for John’s ears only.

“As always, Greg shares our joys and sorrows.”

A few more miles rolled by before Poppy’s voice sounded from the backseat. “Yellow car!”

Sherlock sighed, but John reminded him “At least they’re entertaining themselves” while cupping his hand over his text screen.

_To: Greg  
Yellow Car_

_From: Greg  
Sorry, mate. That car was not yellow. It was the exact color of Olivia’s nail varnish, which is called Midori._

_To: Greg  
Yellow is yellow._

_From: Greg  
‘Midori’ is green. Yellow is anything between ‘Lemonade Stand By Your Man’ and ‘Banana Cream’. So says our expert._

“Yellow car!” Archer was triumphant.

_To: Greg  
Memorizing nail varnish names? You can take involved parenting too far, you know. _

_From: Greg  
What else are you going to measure it against? Gotta have standards, you know._

“Yellow! CAR!” Poppy this time.

“Nuh-uh. That wasn’t yellow.” Archer spoke with the assurance of the elder sibling, smug in his superior experience of the world. It was a tone guaranteed to raise Poppy’s, and Sherlock’s, hackles. Neither tolerated being soared over.

“It was too, wasn’t it Daddy? Wasn’t that car yellow?”

John sighed. “It looked closer to orange to me, Poppy.”

Sherlock raised a brow. “Really, John? I’d have called it yellow. Which makes two for and two against. I suppose, since we are in a stalemate, we need to determine a set of baseline criteria with which to assess exactly what qualifies as yellow.”

Poppy’s forehead wrinkled in confusion, but Archer was carefully parsing what Sherlock had said. “You mean...we need to decide on something that’s yellow, and then if the car is the same color, it counts. Right?”

“Excellent, Archer. So, Poppy, what is yellow?”

“Well...the sun is yellow in drawings. But not when you look at it; then it’s just really bright. Um. Bananas?”

Archer snorted. “Not in our house, they aren’t. They’re speckled, or brown, or even moldy.”

Baby ducks were overruled because they were sometimes grey, and daffodils because they were sometimes white or orange. Just as he was thinking he’d need to introduce cosmetics into the discussion- lemons were agreed upon. John’s sticky notes were ruled an acceptable second criterion but Archer wasn’t sure that was enough.

“But those are both just bright yellow. What about the cars that are neon, or really really light? How do we count those?

Poppy bounced in her seat. “I know! I know! I know something that’s lots of different colors, but it’s always, always yellow!” She was grinning widely, delighted with her own cleverness.

“Go ahead, Poppy,” John encouraged. 

“PEE! Pee is all different kinds of yellow! So if the car is a color Daddy would see in a specialman cup, then the car is yellow and it counts.”

John didn’t dare look at Sherlock or open his mouth to correct her pronunciation of ‘specimen’; Poppy would be mortally offended if he laughed.

Predictably, Archer was quite in favor of the bodily-waste model of adjudication.

_To: Greg  
We have chosen an alternative color scale. No nail varnish involved. _

_From: Greg  
Do I want to know?_

_To: Greg  
Probably not. Found an ‘up’ side to their refusal to eat beet-root, though._

_From: Greg  
Mols had to explain that one to me. You’re right; I really didn’t need to know. _

The tyres crooned soporifically, and John had just begun to drowse in his seat when the next crisis arose. 

“Yellow car! AND it was a punch buggy!” Archer crowed his victory and lightly biffed Poppy’s arm. 

His sister was indignant. “Uncle Greg said that only the old new ones count. The new-new ones don’t even look like punch buggies. That one was an ugly buggy and Those. Don’t. Count.”

“They do, too. All VW Beetles count. You’re stupid.”

John’s voice followed a split second behind Poppy’s outraged gasp. “Archer Gregory William Watson. You will apologize to your sister. Right now. Name calling is not allowed.”

“Especially when it is both un-imaginative and inaccurate.” Sherlock added his own disapproval.

John pinned him with a look. “Not really helping.” He looked at his recalcitrant son. “I’m waiting. Poppy is waiting.”

Archer whispered “I’m sorry I called you stupid” with mildly plausible sincerity, then flounced around in the seat until he was staring moodily out his own window.

_To: Greg  
Punch buggies vs ugly buggies?_

_From: Greg  
I stand by my ruling. Pre-2011 only. The new ones ARE ugly._

Again the vehicle rolled in silence. Poppy sighed gustily, echoed by Archer. A series of soft ‘thuds’ sounded rhythmically from the back seat. Sherlock cleared his throat significantly, and they stopped, only to resume a few minutes later. 

“Poppy!” Archer hissed. “Stop kicking the seat!” A few beats of silence, then a muffled giggle. “Quit pulling faces at...oh, that’s a GOOD one.”

“Sshhhh. Archer, don’t...oh! Do the one with your tongue!”

There were shufflings and shushes, snorting laughter, and then Poppy squealed.

“Oh, don’t do that. That’s horrid!” She followed her declaration with mock-gagging sounds.

A pained look into the backseat showed that Archer, cackling maniacally, had turned his eyelids inside out. John had to agree with Poppy’s analysis; it was fairly horrid. 

Sherlock looked sideways at his husband. “If I may make a suggestion?” His nostrils were flaring, his forearms rigid.

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“Pass them their ipads. I know you were hoping they would entertain each other, but perhaps they’ve done enough ‘sibling bonding’ for the time being.”

John sighed, nodded, handed back the travel sleeves. “Here. Keep yourselves busy. No Minecraft...each of you needs to be doing your own thing.”

Archer immediately opened up the itinerary he’d spent the last two weeks updating. “What day are we going to the go-kart track?” 

John didn’t bother reminding his son that they’d agreed to keep that a secret until the very last moment. Disclosed plans were in the same category as spilled milk and runaway horses; no sense crying or trying to close Archer’s mouth. 

“Go-karts? Really, Daddy? We’re going go-karting?” Poppy bounced excitedly at the news. Before he could begin the conciliatory damage control, his son leapt into the breach.

“No, WE aren’t going go-karting. Just me and Roxie and Daddy and Uncle Greg and Sherlock. The track doesn’t allow little kids. You and Olivia have to stay with Aunt Molly.”

“Me and Olivia are not little kids!”

“Hah! You are too! You’re only four; you don’t even talk right. BIG kids know better than to say ‘me and Olivia’. Only babies say ‘me and’.”

“I AM NOT A BABY”. Poppy’s crescendo of rage was matched by the uptick in engine noise as Sherlock bore down on the accelerator. 

“That is enough, both of you.” The look John directed between his and Sherlock’s seats negated any need to raise his voice. “Archer, stop winding her up. Poppy, you stop letting him. Is that understood?” A red mary-jane swung toward the back of the seat, then back down. Archer glared mutinously into his lap but nodded once. “Poppy, the go-karts are for ages 6 and up. So while we’re doing that, you and Olivia and Aunty Molly are going to have a spa day.”

Nothing else would have distracted her, but ‘spa day’ was a magical phrase.“With hair chalk? And fizzy drinks with berries in? And lip gloss? And, and, and, Oh! Will we have-” her voice fell to a reverent whisper “-smelly bath bombs?”.

It was Archer’s turn to make gagging sounds, subsiding when John pointed ominously at him.

“I’m sure there will be...all manner of...amazing...things.” Thank all the gods ever that Molly Lestrade enjoyed such things. Not even for his blue eyed daughter would John Watson Holmes participate in a spa day. Now he reached into the bag at his feet and handed back headphones. “Here. Put some music on and settle down.”

Fingers tapped and swiped, tense bodies settled into their respective corners. Silence descended. A glance into the backseat showed that Archer was tapping his fingers to something slow and probably classical. Poppy’s pigtails swished to something faster, but there really was no way of knowing what it was. 

“The ipads were a good plan.” John attempted to break the tension. 

“The headphones made it a better one. Truly, music soothes the savage beast.” Sherlock had to unclench his jaw to speak.

“So, which one is the savage, and which is the beast?” He had no delusions about his children; they both had their moments. 

“They trade off, I suppose, as siblings must.” They shared a fond smile, reached to squeeze each other’s hands. John started his own ipod. The ‘roadtrip playlist’ was one he’d painstakingly assembled over the course of several months, selecting things that balanced complexity for Sherlock and actual musicality for himself. He congratulated himself as Sherlock settled back into the seat, his arms falling into a more relaxed angle. John exchanged a few more texts with Greg, then began sleepily trying to guess what the kids were listening to. Until Poppy’s voice rose enthusiastically from the back seat and put an end to the speculation.

“Day-o. Daaaaayyyy-O! Daylight come an’ me wan’ go ho-ome!” 

Oh, God. 

“Day! Me-say-day, me-say-day, me-say-day, me-say-day, me-say-daaaaayyyy-oh! Daylight come ‘an me wan’ go home!”

Sherlock’s fingers clenched the steering wheel. In the back seat, Archer was staring at his sister in horrified amazement. She smiled and unplugged her headphones, reached to tweak his out of his ear as the distinctive voice filled the car. 

“Work all night on a drink of RUM! Daylight come an’ me wan’ go ho-ome! Stack banana ‘till de morning COME!”

“Savage. Beasts.” Some acoustic property allowed Sherlock’s whisper to carry over the cacophony in the backseat, where Archer had apparently decided he’d rather hang for a sheep than a lamb.

“Daylight come and me wan’ go home!” The both cried out. Poppy gestured to her brother.

“Come Mr. Tally man, tally me Ba-na-naaaa!” hollered Archer, and threw the cue back to his sister.

“Daylight come an’ me wan’ go home!” she answered.

John fancied he could hear Sherlock’s teeth grinding in counterpoint to the calypso rhythm.

“Come Mr. Tally man, tally me banana!” Poppy led the cry this time.

“Daylight come and me wan’ go home!” Archer answered.

“ARCHER. PENELOPE.” Sherlock’s voice snapped out their names. “What did we agree about music? Did I not specifically say that there was to be no Harry Belafonte?”

“She started it.” Archer was quick to point out. 

Poppy’s retribution was quick and comprehensive, though somewhat stymied by the seat belt holding her back.

“Hey! Ouch...Dad. DAD. She’s hitting me! Hey!” His grab for her hand got him yanked closer so she could rain blows down on his shoulder. Her ipad fell to the floor where the music continued to pump out.

Archer gave up on being rescued by his father and started defending himself, one hand holding Penelope’s arm away from his body while the other fisted itself in the nearest pigtail. Accusations and betrayals shrilled from both combatants while the singer warned of ‘deadly black ta-ran-chla’.

Really, John thought, it was like a bar brawl on wheels. Sherlock pulled the SUV onto the shoulder.

A glance out the back windscreen showed John that the Lestrade family was pulling up behind them. Greg was exiting the passenger door as Sherlock yanked up the parking brake. 

The two children had stopped their scuffle when the absence of motion registered, and were regarding Sherlock with wide, teary eyes. Archer prudently silenced the ipad.

He stared at his stepchildren. “We had an agreement. There was to be NO Harry Belafonte. There was to be NO MORE SHOUTING. And yet-” he pointed at each of them “-and yet, you have been YELLING the BANANA BOAT SONG. And fighting.” He added the secondary crime with a glance at John. “Well. If you ‘wan go home’ that badly, I will be HAPPY to turn this car around and TAKE YOU THERE.”

Poppy sniffled tremulously. “I’m sorry, Sherlock,” she whispered. 

When Greg’s casual tap on Sherlock’s window went ignored, John leaned over and toggled it open. Greg crouched down to better see the interior, chuckled when he saw the irate man and remorseful, bedraggled youngsters. “Problem, John?” 

“Bit of a kerfuffle over music choices. You know how it goes.” John rested a hand fondly on Sherlock’s knee. “He’s actually done really well up until now. But Poppy unleashed a Belafonte bomb…”

Greg hummed consideringly. “Time for plan B?”

“Yeah, I think so. Molly okay with that?”

Sherlock broke in, growling his frustration. “There’s a plan B? You were so sure this would happen that there is a plan B?”

John patted his knee. “Sherlock, we all love you dearly, but we also know you.”

“And we know the kids, and how these sorts of things can go.” Greg put in.

“So, yeah, we considered this. Lots of ways to handle it, but we thought the most efficient would be to just switch up the cars. Six year-olds with us, fours with Greg and Molly. Everyone rides with their best mate, and they can run off all these shenanigans when we get to the rental.”

“So we are to reward heinously inappropriate behavior with a novel and interesting experience?”

John rolled his eyes. “Heinous? Really?”

Greg coughed. “Well, Roxie did threaten to put chewing gum in Olivia’s hair.” 

John winced. Olivia’s long, brown ringlets; it didn’t bear thinking about. “Okay, that’s heinous. Definitely time to switch them up.” He gestured to Poppy, pointed to the door facing the shoulder. “Get out on that side, go with Uncle Greg.” 

“Can I bring my ipad?”

Greg shrugged. “You can if you want, but I’ve got an audio book...Charlie and Lola?” 

The ipad was left to its fate as she scrambled out. 

“Want to switch drivers, as long as we’re at it?” John offered with a glance at his frazzled husband.

Sherlock sighed, looked considering, then shook his head. “Driving long distances aggravates your shoulder. It’s just a couple more hours. Besides, you’re still tired from working night shifts last week.”

John had to agree with that assessment. Starting their vacation with a stiff shoulder and the frequently resulting headache wouldn’t be fair for anyone. He leaned over the seat to collect the ipads. Maybe, with things quieted down, he could even nap. 

Roxie climbed in, exchanged ‘secret handshakes’ with Archer, then leaned forward. “Dad says you guys have music; got any FLUX quartet? I love those guys.”


End file.
